• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.157-175
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• 2021

This study categorized 3,214 companies out of the tech firms supported by the Korea Technology Finance Corporation's "technology guarantee scheme" through technology assessment from 2017 to 2019 into Fourth Industrial Revolution-related companies and general SMEs. The impact of the management characteristics of these 1,752 tech firms on the determination of high-growth firms was then empirically analyzed. This study used the OECD(2007) definition to define a "high-growth firm" as "an enterprise with average revenue growth greater than 20% per annum, over a two-year period." As the two sample groups showed non-normal distribution, this study conducted the Mann-Whitney U test, a nonparametric test, to analyze the mean differences and bivariate logistic regression in which the normality assumption is less stringent. The independent variables include fundamental characteristics; a regional dummy; a technological level dummy; and the capabilities of company representatives, human capital, and technological innovation. The corresponding sub-variables are representatives' level of education and experience in the same industry, full-time workers, research personnel, the extent of intellectual property rights, investment in research and development, firm age, total assets, region_metropolitan area, region_central region, technological level_high technology, and technological level_medium technology. As a result, the research hypothesis about representatives' level of experience in the same industry, full-time workers, total assets, and technological level_high technology was supported for the Fourth Industrial Revolution-related companies. For the general SMEs, the research hypothesis about representatives' level of experience in the same industry, research personnel, total assets, and region_metropolitan area was supported.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.147-176
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• 2003

This Paper Presents a new measurement technique to derive the level of BSRC (Basic Science and Research Capacity) index by use of the factor analysis which is extended with the assumption of the standard normal probability distribution of the selected explanatory variables. The new measurement method is used to forecast the gap of Korea's BSRC level compared with those of major OECD countries in terms of time lag and to make their international comparison during the time period of 1981∼1999, based on the assumption that the BSRC progress function of each country takes the form of the logistic curve. The US BSRC index is estimated to be 0.9878 in 1981, 0.9996 in 1990 and 0.99991 in 1999, taking the 1st place. The US BSRC level has been consistently the top among the 16 selected variables, followed by Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in order. Korea's BSRC is estimated to be 0.2293 in 1981, taking the lowest place among the 16 OECD countries. However, Korea's BSRC indices are estimated to have been increased to 0.3216 (in 1990) and 0.44652 (in 1999) respectively, taking 10th place. Meanwhile, Korea's BSRC level in 1999 (0.44652) is estimated to reach those of the US and Japan in 2233 and 2101, respectively. This means that Korea falls 234 years behind USA and 102 years behind Japan, respectively. Korea is also estimated to lag 34 years behind Germany, 16 years behind France and the UK, 15 years behind Sweden, 11 years behind Canada, 7 years behind Finland, and 5 years behind the Netherlands. For the period of 1981∼1999, the BSRC development speed of the US is estimated to be 0.29700. Its rank is the top among the selected OECD countries, followed by Japan (0.12800), Korea (0.04443), and Germany (0.04029). the US BSRC development speed (0.2970) is estimated to be 2.3 times higher than that of Japan (0.1280), and 6.7 times higher than that of Korea. German BSRC development speed (0.04029) is estimated to be fastest in Europe, but it is 7.4 times slower than that of the US. The estimated BSRC development speeds of Belgium, Finland, Italy, Denmark and the UK stand between 0.01 and 0.02, which are very slow. Particularly, the BSRC development speed of Spain is estimated to be minus 0.0065, staying at the almost same level of BSRC over time (1981 ∼ 1999). Since Korea shows BSRC development speed much slower than those of the US and Japan but relative]y faster than those of other countries, the gaps in BSRC level between Korea and the other countries may get considerably narrower or even Korea will surpass possibly several countries in BSRC level, as time goes by. Korea's BSRC level had taken 10th place till 1993. However, it is estimated to be 6th place in 2010 by catching up the UK, Sweden, Finland and Holland, and 4th place in 2020 by catching up France and Canada. The empirical results are consistent with OECD (2001a)'s computation that Korea had the highest R&D expenditures growth during 1991∼1999 among all OECD countries ; and the value-added of ICT industries in total business sectors value added is 12% in Korea, but only 8% in Japan. And OECD (2001b) observed that Korea, together with the US, Sweden, and Finland, are already the four most knowledge-based countries. Hence, the rank of the knowledge-based country was measured by investment in knowledge which is defined as public and private spending on higher education, expenditures on R&D and investment in software.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.1-23
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• 2009

The Survey on the Industrial Research and Development(R&D) is the primary source of information on R&D performed by Korea industrial sector. The results of the survey are used to assess trends in R&D expenditures. Government agencies, corporations, and research organizations use the data to investigate productivity determinants, formulate tax policy, and compare individual company performance with industry averages. Recently, Korea Industrial Technology Association(KOITA) has collected the data by complete enumeration. Koita has, currently, considered sample survey because the number of R&D institutions in industry has been dramatically increased. This study develops survey design for the industrial research and development(R&D) statistics by introducing a sample survey. Companies are divided into 8 groups according to the amount of R&D expenditures and firm size or type. We collect the sample from 24 or 8 sampling strata and compare the results with those of complete enumeration survey. The estimates from 24 sampling strata are not significantly different to the results of complete enumeration survey. We propose the survey design as follows: Companies are divided into 11 groups including the companies of which R&D expenditures are unknown. All large companies are included in the survey and medium and small companies are sampled from 70% and 3%. Simple random sampling (SRS) is applied to the small company partition since they show uniform distribution in R&D expenditures. The independent probability proportionate to size (PPS) sampling procedure may be applied to those companies identified as 'not R&D performers'. When respondents do not provide the requested information, estimates for the missing data are made using imputation algorithms. In the future study, new key variables should be developed in survey questionnaires.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.475-488
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• 2017

To simulate accurate drought, a drought index is needed to reflect the hydrometeorological phenomenon. Several studies have been conducted in Korea using the Modified Surface Water Supply Index (MSWSI) to simulate hydrological drought. This study analyzed the limitations of MSWSI and quantified the uncertainties of MSWSI. The influence of hydrometeorological components selected as the MSWSI components was analyzed. Although the previous MSWSI dealt with only one observation for each input component such as streamflow, ground water level, precipitation, and dam inflow, this study included dam storage level and dam release as suitable characteristics of the sub-basins, and used the areal-average precipitation obtained from several observations. From the MSWSI simulations of 2001 and 2006 drought events, MSWSI of this study successfully simulated drought because MSWSI of this study followed the trend of observing the hydrometeorological data and then the accuracy of the drought simulation results was affected by the selection of the input component on the MSWSI. The influence of the selection of the probability distributions to input components on the MSWSI was analyzed, including various criteria: the Gumbel and Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distributions for precipitation data; normal and Gumbel distributions for streamflow data; 2-parameter log-normal and Gumbel distributions for dam inflow, storage level, and release discharge data; and 3-parameter log-normal distribution for groundwater. Then, the maximum 36 MSWSIs were calculated for each sub-basin, and the ranges of MSWSI differed significantly according to the selection of probability distributions. Therefore, it was confirmed that the MSWSI results may differ depending on the probability distribution. The uncertainty occurred due to the selection of MSWSI input components and the probability distributions were quantified using the maximum entropy. The uncertainty thus increased as the number of input components increased and the uncertainty of MSWSI also increased with the application of probability distributions of input components during the flood season.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.141-177
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• 2011

I. Research Objectives: Most of the previous studies on diffusion have concentrated on efficacy of WOM communication with the use of variables at individual level (Iacobucci 1996; Midgley et al. 1992). However, there is a paucity of studies which investigated network's structural properties as antecedents of WOM from the perspective of consumers' sociocultural propensities. Against this research backbone, this study attempted to link the network's structural properties and consumer' WOM behavior on cross-national basis. The major research objective of this study was to examine the relationship between network properties and WOM by comparing Korean and Chinese consumers. Specific objectives of this research are threefold; firstly, it sought to examine whether network properties (i.e., tie strength, centrality, range) affect WOM (WOM intention and quality of WOM). Secondly, it aimed to explore the moderating effects of cutural orientation (uncertainty avoidance and individuality) on the relationship between network properties and WOM. Thirdly, it substantiates the role of innovativeness as antecedents to both network properties and WOM. II. Research Hypotheses: Based on the above research objectives, the study put forth the following research hypotheses to validate. ${\cdot}$ H 1-1 : The Strength of tie between two counterparts within network will positively influence WOM effectivenes ${\cdot}$ H 1-2 : The network centrality will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 1-3 : The network range will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-1 : The consumer's uncertainty avoidance tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-2 : The consumer's individualism tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 3-1 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence the social network properties ${\cdot}$ H 3-2 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence WOM effectiveness III. Methodology: Through a pilot study and back-translation, two versions of questionnaire were prepared, one in Korean and the other in Chinese. The chinese data were collected from the chinese students enrolled in language schools in Suwon city in Korea, while Korean data were collected from students taking classes in a major university in Seoul. A total of 277 questionnaire were used for analysis of Korean data and 212 for Chinese data. The reason why Chinese students living in Korea rather than in China were selected was based on two factors: one was to neutralize the differences (ie, retail channel availability) that may arise from living in separate countries and the second was to minimize the difference in communication venues such as internet accessibility and cell phone usability. SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 7.0 were used for analysis. IV. Results: Prior to hypothesis verification, mean differences between the two countries in terms of major constructs were performed with the following result; As for network properties (tie strength, centrality and range), Koreans showed higher scores in all three constructs. For cultural orientation traits, Koreans scored higher only on uncertainty avoidance trait than Chinese. As a result of verifying the first research objective, confirming the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness, on Korean side, tie strength(Beta=.116; t=1.785) and centrality (Beta=.499; t=6.776) significantly influenced on WOM intention, and similar finding was obtained for Chinese side, with tie strength (Beta=.246; t=3.544) and centrality (Beta=.247; t=3.538) being significant. However, with regard to WOM argument quality, Korean data yielded only centrality (Beta=.82; t=7.600) having a significant impact on WOM, whereas China showed both tie strength(Beat=.142; t=2.052) and centrality(Beta=.348; t=5.031) being influential. To answer for the second research objective addressing the moderating role of cultural orientation, moderated regression anaylsis was performed and the result showed that uncertainty avoidance moderated between network range and WOM intention for both Korea and China, But for Korea, the uncertainty avoidance moderated between tie strength and WOM quality, while for China it moderated between network range and WOM intention. And innovativeness moderated between tie strength and WOM intention for Korea but it moderated between network range and WOM intention for China. As a result of analysing for third research objective, we found that for Korea, innovativeness positively influenced centrality only (Beta=.546; t=10.808), while for China it influenced both tie strength (Beta=.203; t=2.998) and centrality(Beta=.518; t=8.782). But for both countries alike, the innovativeness influenced positively on WOM (WOM intention and WOM quality). V. Implications: The study yields the two practical implications. Firstly, the result suggests that companies targeting multinational customers need to identify segments which are susceptible to the positive WOM and WOM information based on individual traits such as uncertainty avoidance and individualism and based on that, develop marketing communication strategy. Secondly, the companies need to divide the market on Roger's five innovation stages and based on this information, enforce marketing strategy which utilizes social networking tools such as public media and WOM. For instance, innovator and early adopters, if provided with new product information, will be able to capitalize upon the network advantages and thus add informational value to network operations using SNS or corporate blog.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to obtain the implications for establishing a marketing strategy for retailers by analyzing whether the consumer's preference for products (food) is influenced by on-line, off-line, and omni-channel preferences. The research model consisted of the effects of consumers' food selection characteristics on business preference and omni channel preference. The results of analysis based on 477 questionnaires are summarized as follows. First, food purchasing characteristics that utilize the seven characteristics of (1) freshness of food, (2) taste, (3) quality and safety, (4) tasting, (5) food function and information, (6) country of origin, and (7) brand loyalty, has various effects on types of business preference, omni-channel preference. The adopted hypotheses were selected in order of brand loyalty (5 times), freshness (3 times), tasting (3 times), and origin (1 time). The selective attributes on foods are: (1) what kind of brand, (2) how good the freshness is, (3) tasting. (4) The country of origin is to be compressed. Actually consumers seem to utilize only the core selective factors that are appropriate to the characteristics of the distribution channel rather than all of them in the shopping of the food, and there is three characteristics on Convenience Store and only one or two factors in the other types of business. Second, in the analysis of the omni-channel preference analysis, food selection characteristics has been shown to have a limited effect, which is attributed to the fact that the consumer has not yet understood the concept of omni channel. Third, the results of this study suggest that there is a need to reflect the selection characteristics of foods that have diverse influences by business type in the marketing strategies. Because consumers make reasonable consumption to use both on-line and off-line simultaneously, consumers who use Omni Channel focus on quality and safety of food, identify products through tasting, pursue brands that can trust anywhere. Customers who pursue rationality will have a high preference for using Omni Channel. Product choice characteristic has significant effect on omni-channel preference. For a few years, omni-channel strategy of retailers meets with a difficulty. This study make a first attempt to study omni-channel preference changing retailing paradigm.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.119-144
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• 2021

Recently, as competition in the market evolves from the competition among companies to the competition among their supply chains, companies are struggling to enhance their supply chain management (hereinafter SCM). In particular, as blockchain technology with various technical advantages is combined with SCM, a lot of domestic manufacturing and distribution companies are considering the adoption of blockchain-oriented SCM (BOSCM) services today. Thus, it is an important academic topic to examine the factors affecting the use of blockchain-oriented SCM. However, most prior studies on blockchain and SCMs have designed their research models based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) or the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), which are suitable for explaining individual's acceptance of information technology rather than companies'. Under this background, this study presents a novel model of blockchain-oriented SCM acceptance model based on the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework to consider companies as the unit of analysis. In addition, Value-based Adoption Model (VAM) is applied to the research model in order to consider the benefits and the sacrifices caused by a new information system comprehensively. To validate the proposed research model, a survey of 126 companies were collected. Among them, by applying PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling) with data of 122 companies, the research model was verified. As a result, 'business innovation', 'tracking and tracing', 'security enhancement' and 'cost' from technology viewpoint are found to significantly affect 'perceived value', which in turn affects 'intention to use blockchain-oriented SCM'. Also, 'organization readiness' is found to affect 'intention to use' with statistical significance. However, it is found that 'complexity' and 'regulation environment' have little impact on 'perceived value' and 'intention to use', respectively. It is expected that the findings of this study contribute to preparing practical and policy alternatives for facilitating blockchain-oriented SCM adoption in Korean firms.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.97-106
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• 2022

Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) is one of gram-positive foodborne pathogens with a very high fatality rate. Unlike most foodborne pathogens, L. monocytogenes is capable of growing at low temperatures, such as in refrigerated foods. Thus, various physical and chemical prevention methods are used in the manufacturing, processing and distribution of food. However, there are limitations to the methods such as possible changes to the food quality and the consumer awareness of synthetic preservatives. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the anti-listeria activity of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolated from kimchi and characterize the bacteriocin produced by Lactococcuslactis which is one of isolated strains from kimchi. The analysis on the anti-listeria activity of a total of 36 species (Lactobacillus, Weissella, Lactobacillus, and Lactococcus) isolated from kimchi by the agar overlay method revealed that L. lactis NJ 1-10 and NJ 1-16 had the highest anti-listeria activity. For quantitatively analysis on the anti-listeria activity, NJ 1-10 and NJ 1-16 were co-cultured with L. monocytogenes in Brain Heat Infusion (BHI) broth, respectively. As a result, L. monocytogenes was reduced by 3.0 log CFU/mL in 20 h, lowering the number of bacteria to below the detection limit. Both LAB strains showed anti-listeria activity against 24 serotypes of L. monocytogenes, although the sizes of clear zone was slightly different. No clear zone was observed when the supernatants of both LAB cultures were treated with proteinase-K, indicating that their anti-listerial activities might be due to the production of bacteriocins. Heat stability of the partially purified bacteriocins of NJ 1-10 and NJ 1-16 was relatively stable at 60℃ and 80℃. Yet, their anti-listeria activities were completely lost by 60 min of treatment at 100℃ and 15 min of treatment at 121℃. The analysis on the pH stability showed that their anti-listeria activities were the most stable at pH 4.01, and decreased with the increasing pH value, yet, was not completely lost. Partially purified bacteriocins showed relatively stable anti-listeria activities in acetone, ethanol, and methanol, but their activities were reduced after chloroform treatment, yet was not completely lost. Conclusively, this study revealed that the bacteriocins produced by NJ 1-10 and NJ 1-16 effectively reduced L. monocytogenes, and that they were relatively stable against heat, pH, and organic solvents, therefore implying their potential as a natural antibacterial substance for controlling L. monocytogenes in food.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2023

Liposomes as drug delivery system have proved useful carrier for various disease, including cancer. In addition, perfluorocarbon cored microbubbles are utilized in conjunction with high-intensity focused-ultrasound (HIFU) to enable simultaneous diagnosis and treatment. However, microbubbles generally exhibit lower drug loading efficiency, so the need for the development of a novel liposome-based drug delivery material that can efficiently load and deliver drugs to targeted areas via HIFU. This study aims to develop a liposome-based drug delivery material by introducing a substance that can burst liposomes using ultrasound energy and confirm the ability to target tumors using PET imaging. Liposomes (Lipo-DOX, Lipo-DOX-Au, Lipo-DOX-Au-RGD) were synthesized with gold nanoparticles using an avidin-biotin bond, and doxorubicin was mounted inside by pH gradient method. The size distribution was measured by DLS, and encapsulation efficiency of doxorubicin was analyzed by UV-vis spectrometer. The target specificity and cytotoxicity of liposomes were assessed in vitro by glioblastoma U87mg cells to HIFU treatment and analyzed using CCK-8 assay, and fluorescence microscopy at 6-hour intervals for up to 24 hours. For the in vivo study, U87mg model mouse were injected intravenously with 1.48 MBq of ⁶⁴Cu-labeled Lipo-DOX-Au and Lipo-DOX-Au-RGD, and PET images were taken at 0, 2, 4, 8, and 24 hours. As a result, the size of liposomes was 108.3 ± 5.0 nm at Lipo-DOX-Au and 94.1 ± 12.2 nm at Lipo-DOX-Au-RGD, and it was observed that doxorubicin was mounted inside the liposome up to 52%. After 6 hours of HIFU treatment, the viability of U87mg cells treated with Lipo-DOX-Au decreased by around 20% compared to Lipo-DOX, and Lipo-DOX-Au-RGD had a higher uptake rate than Lipo-DOX. In vivo study using PET images, it was confirmed that ⁶⁴Cu-Lipo-DOX-Au-RGD was taken up into the tumor immediately after injection and maintained for up to 4 hours. In this study, drugs released from liposomes-gold nanoparticles via ultrasound and RGD targeting were confirmed by non-invasive imaging. In cell-level experiments, HIFU treatment of gold nanoparticle-coupled liposomes significantly decreased tumor survival, while RGD-liposomes exhibited high tumor targeting and rapid release in vivo imaging. It is expected that the combination of these models with ultrasound is served as an effective drug delivery material with therapeutic outcomes.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_1
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• pp.695-713
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• 2023

In coastal waters, phytoplankton,suspended particulate matter, and dissolved organic matter intricately and nonlinearly alter the reflectivity of seawater. Neural network technology, which has been rapidly advancing recently, offers the advantage of effectively representing complex nonlinear relationships. In previous studies, a three-stage neural network was constructed to extract the inherent optical properties of each component. However, this study proposes an algorithm that directly employs a deep neural network. The dataset used in this study consists of synthetic data provided by the International Ocean Color Coordination Group, with the input data comprising above-surface remote-sensing reflectance at nine different wavelengths. We derived inherent optical properties using this dataset based on a deep neural network. To evaluate performance, we compared it with a quasi-analytical algorithm and analyzed the impact of log transformation on the performance of the deep neural network algorithm in relation to data distribution. As a result, we found that the deep neural network algorithm accurately estimated the inherent optical properties except for the absorption coefficient of suspended particulate matter (R² greater than or equal to 0.9) and successfully separated the sum of the absorption coefficient of suspended particulate matter and dissolved organic matter into the absorption coefficient of suspended particulate matter and dissolved organic matter, respectively. We also observed that the algorithm, when directly applied without log transformation of the data, showed little difference in performance. To effectively apply the findings of this study to ocean color data processing, further research is needed to perform learning using field data and additional datasets from various marine regions, compare and analyze empirical and semi-analytical methods, and appropriately assess the strengths and weaknesses of each algorithm.